NOC Recaps The Flash: It’s Getting Hawk in Here

Other title options: Ready to Hawk and Roll, Hawked and Loaded, Hawk of Ages, We Will Hawk You, Too Hawk Hawk Damn, and Drop It like It’s Hawk1.

Before we begin… does Hawkgirl “claim” to be white? Uh oh, this is hawkward… but it wouldn’t be too surprising. (See Sandra Hawke, Sin, and Ra’s Al Ghul). I personally went through Kendra Saunders’ twitter history to read her tweets and reactions and responses to identifying as white. I urge others to do the same and form an opinion after seeing both sides.

“Previously on The Flash AND Arrow..”

Oooh! “And?” “And” is good. We’re reminded of Barry and Oliver’s partnership, the fact that Wells-2 has been camping out in S.T.A.R. Labs because he’s supposed to be dead, and Ollie has an illegitimate Hawk(e)baby son.

Barry Allen is dealing with his PTZD (Post-traumatic Zoom Disorder) in a healthier way. Despite his Forrest Gump-ing around the city, he still hasn’t been able to reach his previous record of Mach 2 — 1,500ish mph and fast enough to time travel. Apparently, Zoom is 3-4 times faster than Barry is: does that mean Zoom is potentially a Mach 8 runner?! Holy shit, that’s over 6,100 mph.

Harry Wells hilariously starts listing reasons why Zoom may potentially be better than Barry, and Barry is just like, okay alright calm down if people don’t know they shouldn’t guess2. He speeds off for his date with Patty, and SnoWells sigh and shrug and try to think of ways to pump up Barry’s speed. “Not everything,” Harry Wells says mysteriously like a mad scientist.

At the Central City docks, a stowaway with the most savage collection of knives hidden in a fancy coat murders an entire ship’s crew. To the extreme he throws his knives like a vandal. (Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle). This man has magic, and he’s hunting for his prey.

The Vandal ends up at Jitters After-Hours where Cisco and Kendra are about to get to know each other even more personally after a few weeks of dating. Nothing like getting a knife thrown at your chest to kill the romantic vibes. (Please reread that and replace “romantic vibes” with “Romantic Vibe.” Thank you.)

Luckily, Cisco sent a distress signal to Barry and he’s fast enough to prevent The Worst Ending to a date Ever. Cisco in an adrenalized near-death moment of stupidity outs Barry’s identity in front of Kendra. Of course, she knows Barry; he’s at Jitters ordering his own namesake drink, like, every damn day.

Well, now Kendra knows so it’s okay for Barry to utilize all of the trick arrows in his quiver i.e. Oliver’s quiver. Is Barry’s decision to hide out in Star City for extra protection from the Green Arrow a latent low self-esteem reaction to his PTZD? Possibly. But magic is scary and this magic seems to be centuries old and now we get a crossover from it, so I accept it.

Cut to Star City and Team Arrow hijacking Darhk’s in-process hijacking. No Laurel, though. Hmmm… barely even any Iris from earlier, now that I think about it. Where are my ladies at? Too many women to drive a male-centered show?

Team Arrow, baby. Minus the Canary… I guess.

A flash of red flies by to sweep up Team Arrow before they get soul-sucked; Diggle is the last to get flashed in and promptly throws up on arrival. Yes. I love Flash!Diggle. I actually even love Flash!Thea who is trying not to fangirl over meeting The Flash.

Team Arrow brings Barry, Cisco, and Kendra, to the newly upgraded Foundry where Cisco beings to criticize every design mistake they’ve made. It’s nice to have some levity at Arrow HQ. We get some Barricity fanservice interaction where Felicity alternates hugging and berating Barry. (Damn, Felicity, what do you mean?)

The lightheartedness doesn’t last long when Oliver chews Barry out for endangering Team Arrow by bringing Kendra + her mysterious stalker to Star City. There’s the Barry v Oliver power struggle I was anticipating. Felicity works her own superpower of calming Ollie down and suggests they all drink it up and chat, Avengers-style.

While Barry catches Felicity up to speed on the multi-verse situation and they theorize how Oliver-2 was probably pot-bellied and baldwhile simultaneously reminding me why Barricity is my guilty pleasure, Cisco begs Thea to change her superhero name. Thea, in turn, begs Cisco to cut his hair. I just love it all.

Vandal Savage literally crashes through the window of the party (insert my lazy Ultron joke here) and tries to knife everyone in sight. I cheered when Barry armed Oliver and the two of them justice-ed out sans supersuits.

It’s a fun scene until Thea “ends it” and shoots the Vandal extremely savagely between the eyes. It does nothing, however, because our heroes soon learn that Kendra’s stalker is Immortal.

Barry and Oliver are so in-sync. They both peer over the balcony looking for a body to clean up.. and find nothing. “Oh, boy,” they both breath out at the same time. God, I live for this super-bromance. It’s all I want from Clark and Bruce.

In Arrow HQ, Cisco decides to spill the beans about his meta-human powers to Kendra, you know, as you do after the third date. The awkwardness is buffered by the dramatic entrance of Merlyn Al Ghul and his dramatic information about Vandal Savage. Does it bother anyone else how reverent and inspired Merlyn sounds when he speaks of Vandal Savage’s immortality? It bother Kendra, and she flies out of the foundry to get a grip. Cisco follows her and tries to calm her down because, like he told Barry, he is so sprung on her. It lovely until Hawkman literally SWOOPS in. No really, Carter Hall aka Hawkman 100% non-figuratively flies down in a swooping trajectory and flies away with Kendra leaving Cisco alone. Sorry, Cisco, you can’t compete with reincarnated soulmates.

I’d like to encourage everyone to rewatch both parts of the Flarrow crossover and listen to the music score whenever the two Hawks are onsccreen; the characters and their scenes together combined with the ancient drumbeat soundtrack really make it a brand new show.

Carter/Khufu/Hawkman pauses the very, very, very important conversation with Kendra to handle bidniss aka deal with The Flash and the Green Arrow who are both currently gaining in on the Hawks. He hold up a finger like, “Gimme a sec, babe. BRB.”

First, Hawkman takes on Green Arrow. The hawk is a good fighter; a warrior. He returns the many arrows GA shoots at him and knocks the archer off his motorbike.

Barry charges in to save his BFF and semi-boyfriend and immediately get vertically dropped by Hawkman. Oliver sends one of his jettison arrows Barry’s way so that the Flash can zipline to him for a quick re-strategy session.They have a quick lover’s spat about listening to each other. Like a true couple, they throw back each other’s words in a later argument.

Barry funnel arms Hawkman out of the air while Oliver shoots away. Barry also gets to show off his new lightning-throw move that he picked up from Jay Garrick. Oliver is impressed. It pleases Barry.

Speaking of Jay Garrick, the Earth-2 speedster + Caitlin + Earth-2 Harry Wells have their own drama go down back at S.T.A.R. Labs. Patty Spivot breached Lab security — obviously — and shot Harry Wells because she thought that the Velocity-6 Speed Serum-gun he was holding was an actual weapon. It might be, according to Jay Garrick, but it wasn’t enough to defend himself against P. Spivvy’s bullet to his chest plate.

Damn, that was unexpected. Caitlin freaks, calls Jay, and temporarily speeds him up again so that he can phase his hand through Wells’ chest to retrieve the bullet remains. It’s nice that Jay does this for Harry despite their obvious beef. Maybe he did it for Caitlin? Or he did it because his heart is good since he is technically The Flash, too. Whatever the reason, the most important thing is that THERE IS A SNOWJAY V. SNOWELLS LOVE TRIANGLE BREWING WHO CARES ABOUT VELOCITY-6.

They chain Carter to a wall so that he doesn’t sprout wings anymore, but the Hawkman convinces them to help Kendra grow her own pair of wings… by getting her to “fall to her death.” Surprisingly, Barry is uneasy with the unorthodox plan and Oliver is the one supporting the illogical. I love role reversals. Carter give Kendra a little, ahem, nudge off the skyscraper, and Barry is there to save her when her wings most definitely do NOT emerge.

Guess what? Carter was right. Kendra needed to believe. She needed to believe that she could fly. She needed to believe that she could touch the sky. When she and Cisco are alone on the roof, she makes the leap of faith towards her destiny.

The situation seems hopeless, but Team Flarrow’s luck changes when they head back to Central City after tracking Vandal Savage on his way to retrieve an ancient relic Gandalf Staff. My suited-up justice bros walk into the church where Vandal is. Can I mention how cute Barry is when he complains to Oliver how slow they are? That’s some Justice League cartoon dialogue, and I’m all about it.